Forgiveness and Casting Stones

Often over the past week, I’ve caught myself thinking about forgiveness. When is it appropriate to forgive? Is forgiveness necessary? I’m suspicious of the idea of radical forgiveness that is often taught in self-help books, new age philosophy, and some Christianity. I’ve tried it and it has never really worked for me.

For much of my adult life, I’ve tried to forgive the worst crimes committed against me. Everyone told me to do it for myself, I wouldn’t heal without it. It did not feel right at the time and it doesn’t feel right now. Where do we get our ideas about forgiveness? I would argue that our ideas about forgiveness come from our culture’s Christian underpinnings. I have had many Christians tell me that I must forgive because god forgave me. Those types of arguments do not work on me because I am no longer a Christian. They’ve also pointed out to me that I’m sinful and therefore have no right to cast stones. This too has no meaning for me because I no longer believe. I have to wonder where that line of logic ends. So if someone murders my child will I be accused of casting stones if I call out the killer? If a person’s home is robbed are they supposed to stay silent because they have sin in their past? Maybe this rule is only applied to church abuse victims? I do not believe that casting stones is the same thing as calling attention to a problem.

I’ve been accused of being bitter and of trying to destroy a man’s life. I don’t feel that finally having the courage to speak truth to power is being bitter. My actions will not be what destroys his life, his actions set that all in motion many years ago. He continues down the road to destruction by minimizing what he did through referring to it as adultery and not child abuse. I suspect his dishonesty will be his undoing. He claims to have asked for forgiveness years ago, but how can that be so when he cannot even speak the truth about what he did? Those around him seek to protect him from his crimes and part of that is by turning the focus onto me and what I may be doing wrong.

In the end, telling victims that they need to forgive is a way to take the heat off of the perpetrator and focus it back onto the victim. It becomes about whether or not she/he has forgiven and whether or not she/he believes they’re sin free and therefore worthy to call out sin. It gives the victim a task to complete and a way to judge the victim whenever they attempt to speak up for themselves. Using the coded language of adultery instead of child abuse is a way to minimize the crimes of the perpetrator and create crimes for the victim. She/he is now no longer a victim but a sinner just like the abuser, guilty of sexual sin and therefore unworthy to cast stones. Pardon my language but that is some bull $%^&.

Since I started writing this blog I’ve noticed a few things. I am becoming stronger and stronger every day. Through telling my story I have received so much goodwill and understanding from people. By bringing it out into the light and revealing the crime I’ve gained support in a way I’ve never experienced before. This blog has led me to others like me and allies that I would’ve never had contact with had I just forgiven and kept it hidden. I don’t see forgiveness for Steve Dahl in my future. This doesn’t mean that I intend to think about what happened 24/7 and let it consume my life, it means that this happened to me and it was awful and I will never forget. I believe there is a time and place for forgiveness, it comes after getting honest about what you’ve done and trying to make amends. It doesn’t come through victim blaming and minimizing your crimes.

 

 

True Colors

When I was a child I was taught that we were not supposed to associate with people outside of the church. The church was very narrowly defined as the United Pentecostal Church. I even got the impression that my pastor did not approve of some of the churches within our Wisconsin UPC district. I know that he thought the church in Janesville was too liberal. If someone left the church they were generally shunned unless the purpose of talking to them was to bring them back into the fold.

It is peculiar to me that so many people from UPC churches here in Wisconsin associate with Steve Dahl. He is not ordained as a UPC minister but that doesn’t seem to matter to them. His doctrine mirrors the UPC doctrine but that usually would not be enough. These are very insular people and they do not associate with outsiders. In my view, there is no bigger outsider than Steve Dahl. I’m sure that not everyone within the district knows about his past but enough of them do. I wonder what he says when they ask why he is not ordained within the UPC? What is even more strange is they preach at his church and he travels to other churches within the UPC. He has followers on his Facebook page who attended CGC when he committed his crimes and yet it seems that time has healed all memory of what he did.

I never felt clean after what Steve did to me. I struggled through my adolescence always feeling judged. As a young person once you have the stain of sexual sin on you it can be impossible to remove. I felt like the adults around me were always assuming I was acting inappropriately. I could never grow past what happened to me. Shame was applied liberally and I soaked it all up. Now as an adult as I try to tell my story from a vulnerable and honest place I am aware that nothing has changed.

Just like when I was a child they prefer the child abuser over the abused child. As I and others have tried to speak out and tell our stories we are scoffed at and declared to be liars by some who don’t even know us or the details of our stories. The church has gone out of its way to be friendly with Steve. They are friends with him on social media and they visit one another’s churches. Just like when the abuse happened he seems to be accepted and I am denied. They did not report his actions at the time and he was taken in by another UPC church. He was eventually put in charge of a daughter work and now it is like nothing ever happened. He does not hold a UPCI license but that doesn’t seem to matter much to them. Meanwhile, when I speak my truth they do not want to hear it. My story is automatically met with denial, disbelief, and scorn. there is no willingness to even entertain the idea that I might be telling the truth. Steve is enjoying a fair amount of support on his page. People are offering him prayers and verbal encouragement as he goes through this difficult trial. Not one person who is still in the church has reached out to me.

It isn’t like this is even a he said she said case. At 12 I had no reason to lie and he was caught in the act with another girl at the same time. At the end of the day, I think accusing Steve would not irritate them so much, what really gets them is my calling out how badly they handled it all. They can’t stand that I am saying Bishop Grant is wrong. They view me as a fallen woman and not as a victim.

Watching how well Steve has been received and how much the church wants to deny all of this has hurt me. When I see people I used to respect, like former Sunday School teachers being friends with Steve online that is pretty hard to witness. The really awful part of this is that Steve is not the only one. I know of multiple men who go on being accepted while the women they abused are labeled liars and troublemakers. As far as I’m concerned they lose all credibility when they behave this way. They are not behaving Biblically or in accordance with their own UPC rules.

I know that the light casts out the darkness and so I have no doubt that the truth is going to come out. I intend to keep working to hold them accountable and I hope that someday soon Steve will have his day of reckoning. I’m going to keep telling the truth. The truth doesn’t change just because people don’t want to believe it.

D